A Ukrainian driver is used to gas station prices living their own life — rising quickly, falling slowly. OKKO gas station network CEO Vasyl Danylyak explained the logic of this asymmetry in an interview with LIGA.net, and at the same time gave a direct forecast: if the Hormuz crisis continues, prices on the shelves will go up "definitely".
The state has no money for discounts
The main difference of this crisis from previous ones is that Ukraine will not follow the path of Europe or the USA, where governments temporarily reduced fuel excise taxes. "The Ukrainian budget cannot afford it," Danylyak says. This means the entire burden of rising oil prices on world markets will fall exclusively on the consumer's wallet, without any shock absorber from the state.
Gasoline and diesel are not crude oil
A practical nuance that explains why the logic "crude is getting cheaper — gasoline should too" doesn't work: quotes for finished petroleum products live a separate life from crude oil quotes. According to Danylyak, at the beginning of the Hormuz crisis, diesel rose faster than oil. Then, when oil began to fall, diesel fell faster than gasoline — and gasoline barely moved at all.
The reason lies in market structure: the price depends not only on the cost of raw materials, but also on the hryvnia exchange rate, transportation costs, seasonal demand, and global refining spreads. So at the gas station, you see not "today's oil price," but a mix of factors with different reaction lags.
"We will be forced to revise shelf prices because all new deliveries will be more expensive than previous ones"
What this means for your wallet
According to NBU estimates, a direct increase in fuel prices due to the Middle East conflict could add 0.5-1 percentage points to inflation, and accounting for secondary effects — another 1-2 percentage points. This means higher prices not only at the pump, but also in logistics, and therefore in products on store shelves.
At the same time, the head of the Antimonopoly Committee Pavlo Kyrylenko previously stated that gas station prices in Ukraine could be lower even under current conditions — hinting that network margins are not always transparently tied to world market conditions.
What's next
A diplomatic solution around the Strait of Hormuz has not yet been found: Trump speaks of "very good" talks with Iran, but Secretary of State Rubio acknowledges that there is no final agreement. Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, forecasts record-low diesel reserves in Europe by year-end — this is additional pressure on prices regardless of when the strait is unblocked.
The question for the Ukrainian consumer is simple: if the crisis drags on into winter, will the budget resist the temptation to at least temporarily reduce the excise tax, or will the pump price become the sole "automatic stabilizer" of the market?
